Declassify files relating to Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose: Forum

Claiming that there was "clear evidence" establishing the presence of Subhas Chandra Bose in the erstwhile Soviet Union on the day he was widely believed to have died in a plane crash, All India Legal Aid Forum today demanded that an official request be made to Russia "for disclosing all the KGB files regarding Netaji".

The outfit also said that the Centre declassify all "top secret" files relating to the legendary freedom fighter. "In the files of KGB, the now-dismantled security agency of the erstwhile USSR, there is clear cut evidence that Netaji had taken shelter in Soviet Russia and he was there on August 18, 1945, the date on which he was alleged to have died in a plane crash near Taiwan while travelling in a Japanese aircraft," AILAF general secretary Joydeep Mukherjee told reporters here.

"We fail to understand why, till now, the Indian government has not made an official request to Russia for disclosing all the KGB files relating to Netaji and thereby giving an opportunity to the nation to know the truth about a national hero. The AILAF demands that the Centre make such a request to the Russian government at the earliest," he said. "Besides, there are 36 files with our own government related to Netaji which have been classified as top secret. We demand that these be declassified at the earliest. The truth behind the last days of Subhas Chandra Bose must come out in the open," he added.

Mukherjee also said that the Centre "must disclose what happened to the property and the funds belonging to the Azad Hind Fauj founded by Netaji. "It is estimated that the assets belonging to the Azad Hind Fauj would today be worth more than rupees seventy thousand crore".